


Night Terrors

by EllanaSan



Series: Tumblr Prompts [11]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Night Terrors, Nightmares, mention of past Haymitch/Haymitch's girlfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1244830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllanaSan/pseuds/EllanaSan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Original Prompt : Effie hears Haymitch having a nightmare on their way to the capitol for the next games just after his entire family and his girlfriend got killed, he hasn’t started drinking yet so that’s why the nightmares eat him alive and Effie tries to soothe him...</p>
<p>I was under the impression that Haymitch’s family had been killed rather early on, like just after his games? And he started drinking sooner rather than later I think, and given that Effie comes into the scene much later, I tricked the prompt a bit. Let’s say they’re still on the way to the Capitol but Haymitch had been out of booze for some times and it’s been years since their death but the memories are vivid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Akachankami for the beta!

_The flames were everywhere. They were licking at the wall, eating the whole house from roof to ground. Lizzie was inside, trapped. He could hear her screaming and hammering on the window. His mother’s shouts for help had died down some time ago and his brother…_

_“Help me!” Lizzie was begging, banging on the window but it didn’t break and Haymitch couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything but stare at her shape behind the glass. “Haymitch! Haymitch, help! Help! Haymitch!”_

“Haymitch, wake up!”

He jerked awake and automatically responded to the threat by attacking. The knife he always kept under his pillow snatched at the air.

“Stop! Stop, it’s me. It’s Effie. Haymitch, it’s Effie.”

“Effie.” he repeated, feeling disoriented. He dropped the knife on the bed and took his head into his shaking hands. “We’re on the train.”

“Yes.” she said. He felt the mattress dip beside him and then a hand came to rest carefully on the back of his head. “You had a nightmare, I could hear you from down the hall. You’re safe, now.” Safe. He would never be safe. Not anywhere and certainly not on a train to the Capitol. “Can I do something? Do you want a glass of water? Tell me what you need.”

“I need liquor.” His hands were shaking so badly… He couldn’t tell if it was from the lack of alcohol in his body or from the vivid dream. “Please, I know you hate it but… _please_.” He couldn’t go on like that. He couldn’t. Ripper had been out of alcohol for days and his own stock had died down quickly, it had came to a point where he had almost been happy for Reaping Day to happen because he had known there would be alcohol on the train, except _of course_ Effie would choose that year to specifically ask that they didn’t take any booze or wine on board. “Please, sweetheart, _please_.”

He didn’t mind begging. At that moment there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for some alcohol. Everything to keep the memories out of his mind.

“I’m _so_ sorry, Haymitch.” she said, running her fingers through his hair soothingly. “It’s only a few hours until we get to the Capitol… I feel terrible about all this.”

He let himself fall on his side and put his head in her lap, curling up as much as he could. “Don’t let me fall back asleep. I don’t want to sleep.”

She kept petting his hair. “What did you dream about?” He felt her tense a bit under his cheek. “You don’t have to tell me, of course. How rude of me to ask… But you always seem so… _distant_ I can’t help but wonder what the nightmare was about… Is it just because of the alcohol or…”

“The fire.” he mumbled. “Always the fire. The arena sometimes. The tributes I couldn’t save too. All those ghosts… I need liquor, Effie. I can’t face them without it, I _can’t_.”

A part of him knew he would regret telling her those things in the morning, but the rest was so focused on wanting a drink that he didn’t care.

“You’re the strongest man I know, Haymitch. Of course you can.” she said, and he almost believed her. Almost.

He shook his head no. “She’s there when I close my eyes. They’re _all_ there, waiting for me.”

“Who’s _she_?” she asked. “You were screaming for a Lizzie, are you talking about her? Who is she?”

Who was Lizzie… Thinking about Lizzie was painful. Worse than painful, it was pure _agony_.

“My girlfriend.” The word seemed weird somehow. Ten years too late. “They killed her. They killed them all… My family…”

“What? Who? Who killed them?” She sounded horrified, her hand stilled on his head.

“Who do you think?” He closed his eyes to escape the bright pink of her nightgown – why did everything had to be pink with her? – but opened then quickly again. Too much ghosts were waiting behind his eyelids… “They said it was an accident but fire never happen accidently in the Seam. People are too careful. We didn’t even live near Lizzie’s. Two fires three streets apart, it’s like they didn’t even try to make it look legit…”

“You can’t talk like that, Haymitch.” she scolded him softly.

“Why?” he snarled. “Because you don’t believe me?”

“You know why.” She gripped his shoulder tightly. “Don’t do that.”

She was afraid to be associated with that kind of treason talk or maybe she was afraid for him, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. He could still smell the fire in his dream, he could still see the flames licking the walls…

“I thought I was coming home to them.” he confessed, turning his head to watch her in the darkness. Her face was bare of make-up, her hair tucked in a casual braid on her shoulder… She looked human. She looked… _Sad_. “The only things waiting for me there were three fresh graves. Nothing left. _No_ _one_ left.”

A few tears escaped her eyes and rolled on her cheeks but she was obviously trying hard to keep herself in check. “I am _so_ sorry.”

“If I had died in the arena, they would still be alive.” He had never said that aloud, he had never told anyone, but it was his deepest guilt and his greatest secret.

“No.” she objected immediately. “Don’t think like that, Haymitch. I’m sure they would hate for you to think like that. They loved you, they’d probably want you to remember that.”

“I’d rather be dead.” He gave one shoulder shrug. “I think about it sometimes…”

He wasn’t ready for the slap on his shoulder that left his skin stinging. It was good in a way, the pain made him feel more clear-headed, less… unsettled. The nightmare faded at the back of his head.

“Don’t _ever_ say that to me _again_.” Effie hissed. “I don’t want to do all… _this_ alone. I _can’t_ do this alone. And I certainly don’t want to _lose_ _you_.”

“Never knew you cared, sweetheart.” It was a lie, of course. He knew she cared about him in her odd Capitol way. He cared about her too. She was bloody irritating but she also had a good heart.

“Are you trying to aggravate me?” she asked, pushing him a little – not enough to make his head fall off her lap but enough to get her point across. “I swear you’re _impossible_!”

He winked at her lazily, before sitting up, stretching his arms above his head. He felt a little better, more awake certainly. It didn’t do much for his thirst, though. “How long before we arrive in the Capitol?”

She glanced at the clock on his nightstand. “Another six hours.”

He groaned and let his head fall back against the headboard. Too long. Absolutely too long. He needed liquor now. “Are you _sure_ there isn’t anything worth drinking on this train?”

“I thought you would have some with you.” she apologized. “You always do. I thought… I thought if you had to ration your own stock then you would be sober most of the train ride. I never wanted you to… to be in such distress.”

“Now you make me sound like a damn damsel in need of rescuing, Princess.” He sighed heavily. “I can make do until we arrive. Just… Don’t let me fall asleep. Distract me.”

“Distract you?”

“That’s what I said.”

She frowned. “How?”

“Well…” He smirked and lifted an eyebrow suggestively.

Her eyes widened and she crossed her arms defensively. “I’m not a toy for you to play with, you pervert.”

“Shame…” His laugh was low and more regretful than he would have liked.

“Tell me about Lizzie.” She asked suddenly.

He wished she hadn’t, but he hadn’t talked about her in so long… Nobody ever even mentioned her in Twelve, be it not to stir bad memories or because they deemed him responsible for her death. “She was… perfect in every way.” He smiled slightly, remembering the way she always refused to play with the other girls at school. She was always running with the boys, climbing trees, fighting in the mud with them “She had quite a temper. She hated being told what to do or to not do… One time, she threw a bucket full of water at me because I said she would never win a race against me. She won, obviously.”

Effie smiled. “I understand the urge to throw things at your head. I have to fight it frequently.”

“Yeah… Well…” he shrugged. “I seem to be attracted to crazy women.”

She picked at a loose thread on the cover. “Are you?” It was soft and uncertain and Haymitch didn’t know where the sudden tension he could feel overrunning the room had come from.

“Am I what?” he asked.

She looked him in the eye. “Attracted to me?”

“When you’re not dressed like a clown…” And sometimes even then, but he wasn’t about to tell her that, it sounded too much like a compliment.

“You mean when I look like this.” she said, gesturing to her face.

“I mean when you don’t look like you just fell in a can of paint.” He rolled his eyes. “What’s so wrong with your face you feel the need to hide it under all that powder? Never mind the hair… It’s so bloody ridiculous, you’re so much prettier like…”

She kissed him before he even finished his sentence, a hand in his hair and the other clutching his shirt. “Nobody ever said something like that to me.” she said before kissing him again, so slowly it was a sweet torture. His hand clenched her waist and he tried to take control of the kiss, except, of course, she didn’t let him and they ended up kissing like they did everything else : fiercely and aggressively. His shirt flew first, and then he got lost in the overflow of sensations.

Nightmares and fear of falling asleep were far from his mind.

He didn’t even notice when the train finally reached the Capitol.

 


End file.
